The Serbian Dane (17 page)

When they were done they would take a bath, call a mobile number in Denmark and relay the information, then they would have a few beers before going home.

One of the hoods grabbed Kravtjov by the hair and pulled his head back until the bloody face with its split lips and eyebrows and broken nose was turned to the ceiling. Without raising his voice he said:

‘Who is the bastard? Your little sniper. The guy you met in the park. What’s his name?’

For an old guy he was a pretty hard nut, but the thug could tell he was on the verge of cracking. All men cracked sooner or later. That you could be sure of. Everybody had their limit, and he was approaching his. The heavy tugged Kravtjov’s hair sharply, then let go and slapped him twice in the face. As if on cue the other two thugs brought the sand-filled socks down on Kravtjov’s back and arms. Kravtjov gurgled and rolled his head back and forth.

‘We’ve got all the time in the world,’ the heavy said. ‘But you don’t. Get it over with. Come on! Bastard! Who is he?’

The Russian voice reached Kravtjov’s ears from a long way off. The language he knew so well did not seem to make any sense. He hurt all over. The pain in his chest was the worst; it felt as though they were squeezing his heart with red-hot tongs. His left arm was almost paralysed with pain. He felt more blows landing on his body and heard the crunch when one of the hoods punched him smack in the face. He couldn’t take any more.

‘Vuk. Vuk.’

He did not recognize his own voice. It sounded frail and cracked. His arm and his chest were hurting so badly. They musn’t hit him anymore. He was dying.

‘Stop. Stop. Stop,’ said Kravtjov. ‘Don’t hit me anymore. Vuk. Vuk. The Serbian Dane.’

The thug took a step back.

‘Get some water,’ he said. ‘The bastard’s ready to talk.’

P
er Toftlund received the call from Kammarasov early in the morning at his office and arranged to meet him in Fælledparken in half an hour. He got in touch with his team and asked them to be ready for a briefing session around 11.00 am. He told John, his second-in-command, that when he came back he would probably have some information that would give them a solid lead. He hoped he was right. He had a bad feeling about this whole set-up, although he could not have said exactly why, there was nothing he could put his finger on. But he was so used to trusting his instincts that it would never have occurred to him to disregard his misgivings on this occasion.

The day was cloudy, and the wind sighed in the trees in Fælledparken as he got out of his car and made his way over to the Pavilion. Igor Kammarasov was already there, leaning against one of the pillars, smoking a cigarette. He wore an elegantly tailored suit, a navy-blue overcoat and a discreet scarf. All that was wanting was the fedora and he could have been the tragic hero in a movie from the forties, except that there was nothing sorrowful about his face, his expression was one of loathing and contempt. He saw Per coming and straightened up, but he did not wave, nor did he offer his hand when Per walked up. They had the place to themselves.

Kammarasov came straight to the point:

‘His name’s Vuk. Or at least, that’s what he calls himself. An assumed name, no doubt. Surname unknown. Blond, blue eyes, just over six foot in height, 168 pounds, muscular, athletic. Speaks Danish like a native. Trained at the Yugoslavian Federal Army Special Forces School. Parents were Bosnian Serbs, killed in the civil war. Your man is an ace marksman, a sniper with a lot of lives on his conscience from the war down there.’

Igor Kammarasov rattled all of this off as if delivering a report, with deadpan features and an eye that studiously avoided Per’s. And not merely out of shame. Something had gone wrong, Per could tell.

‘What papers is he travelling on? I suppose Kravtjov must have procured them for him?’

‘A Danish passport and a British one. Both clean.’

‘Names, Igor?’

‘Something ending in “sen”. Common name. Our informant couldn’t remember the British name. He became a bit vague. Turned out he had a weak heart.’

Kammarasov looked at Per, as if entreating him to ask about the interrogation instead, but the policeman was not to be put off.

‘How come he speaks Danish?’ he asked.

‘Would you like to know how I obtained this information?’

Per shook his head. It wasn’t too hard to figure out how Igor had come by these facts so quickly and efficiently.

Kammarasov looked him straight in the eye:

‘Your man was born the son of Yugoslavian immigrant workers living somewhere in Copenhagen, probably in ’69.’

‘Their names?’

‘That information was not forthcoming.’

‘This is much better, Igor. But there are still a few gaps.’

‘There’s no more where that came from. My source suddenly dried up. But this Vuk will be hard to track down. He looks just like all the rest of you.’

‘What about your informant’s contacts?’

‘I don’t seem to remember that being part of the deal.’

Toftlund weighed up the situation. He could possibly ask Kammarasov to make use of his Russian military connections with the Serbs to get hold of this so-called Vuk’s army file. But that would be a slow business, even at best, and they didn’t have much time. Besides which, strictly speaking, Igor had paid his dues. Per tried not to imagine how Kravtjov had died and under what circumstances, but it would not be easy to live with. Nor could he share this knowledge with anyone else. He would have to keep it to himself.

‘Right, Igor,’ Per said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a picture of this man?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

Per stood for a moment. They regarded one another, and that which remained unspoken, the fact that a man had lost his life because of them, and that they shared the burden of guilt, was an invisible chain binding them to one another. Per removed the negative from its flimsy little envelope and handed it to Igor. The latter stuffed it into his coat pocket without looking at it.

‘There are no copies, Igor.’

Igor eyed Per. Then he said:

‘Goodbye, Mr Toftlund. I doubt if we shall meet again.’

He turned and left. Per watched the lean Russian stride off across the dew-spangled grass. No, it was hardly likely. Igor felt very much at home in Denmark, but he would have to seek another posting or return home to Moscow. Knowing what they now had on him, he could no longer operate openly or undercover. In the old days Per would have taken advantage of this situation to try to turn him, get him to spy for Denmark, but he was glad that such a move was not called for in this instance. To be honest, he had always liked Igor. If circumstances had been different, they could have been friends.

Toftlund rounded up his team and filled them in on the new development. It was still going to be extremely difficult to find Vuk in a city the size of Copenhagen with so little to go on; nonetheless, Toftlund wanted them to instigate a systematic check of all small hotels and produce a formal description for distribution to the mobile units, just in case one of them should come across the Danish-speaking Serb. They knew that it was an almost hopeless exercise, that if they did turn him up, it would be more by good luck than anything else. The town was crawling with fair-haired,
blue-eyed
, athletic men who spoke Danish. But if he were to put a foot wrong, at least now they knew what they were dealing with. Toftlund warned them that Vuk was dangerous. He was a killer; they should on no account try to play the hero by taking him on single-handed in the unlikely event that they ran into him. Things weren’t looking too good, and yet somehow the mood in the room had brightened. The case seemed more concrete now. There was an assassin in the city, they had a description to which – while it was by no means perfect – they could relate when it came to guarding Simba. They also had evidence of a definite threat that would, with any luck, prompt
Politiken
and
Simba to cancel the visit and, if nothing else, would make it easier to scrape together the necessary resources for the assignment.

By the end of the meeting everyone was feeling more positive.

‘How are your sea legs, John?’ Per asked.

‘You know very well how they are. Why’d you ask?’

‘Because we’re taking a trip out to Flakfortet. But first we have to pick up a lovely lady.’

‘A-ha! I thought there was something different about you. Christ man, you’re in love.’

‘I might be.’

‘But she’s married.’

‘That’s not my problem,’ said Per.

‘My God, you’re an unprincipled bugger!’ cried John, picking up the jacket that hung over the back of his chair. It was the same style as Per’s, only in air force blue. John had been married for ten years to a girl he had gone to school with, and they seemed to Per to be as much in love now as when he had seen them being married in church. Part of him was happy that he hadn’t been with the same woman for ten years, and yet he was a trifle envious of John’s stable relationship, his cosy home and two lovely boys. Maybe he too was about ready for that, to give it a go at least, although the thought of suddenly having to share everything with another person and always feeling under an obligation to someone else also scared him. But he had meant what he said: Lise was a lovely lady.

In her office in the
Politiken
building Lise Carlsen was writing a press release for distribution to the newspapers and television stations. It took the form of an invitation by Danish PEN to a press conference with the German writer Herbert Scheer. Journalists were to meet on the quayside in Nyhavn, next to the old warehouse now housing the Hotel Nyhavn. From there they would be taken by boat to a certain location in the city – although due to threats against the writer’s life by German and Danish neo-Nazis this was being kept secret – where Scheer would be waiting to meet them. Only those members of the press who had put their names down in advance would be allowed on board. A light lunch would be served. She would be glad when the Santanda visit was over and she could get back to practising proper journalism again. And turn her attention
to all the other work that was piling up on her desk. She was way behind in the correspondence that fell to her lot as chair of Danish PEN. It involved a lot more work than she had envisaged when she had accepted the post, feeling flattered to have been chosen as a respected journalist and a skilled organizer. But she had also wanted the job. It had been time for a generation shift and for a woman to take the chair. Tagesen had relieved her of all other duties during the run-up to Santanda’s visit, so she didn’t feel she was letting down the paper, but she missed the day-to-day routine. Afterwards she would find the time and energy to sort out her own messed-up life. Talk things through with Ole, figure out what it was she wanted from Per. She hardly saw Ole at all. She had gone home early the day before, but there had been no sign of him. They had had breakfast together but said very little. Her heart had gone out to him. He looked slightly pathetic, a bit tired, older. With none of Per’s vigour and robustness. He looked so frail sitting there, with his shoulders drooping. Greyish, porcelain-like pallor. It wasn’t fair to compare them, but she did it all the time. She felt so much younger and stronger. She had a lot of laughs with Per. When had she and Ole last had a good laugh together? She felt sorry for him but knew that if she showed the slightest sign of pity, he would hit the roof.

‘Should I make dinner this evening?’ she had asked in one such fit of compassion, even though she knew very well that when it came to it she would probably cry off and go into the office or home with Per instead.

‘I’ll be eating out tonight,’ he had replied.

She had been surprised to find that he actually had a life outside of her.

‘Oh? Who with?’

Ole had studied her with his weary, slightly bloodshot eyes, but there had been a touch of the old Ole sarcasm in his voice when he said:

‘A man, Lise. A young man I met, and whom I’ve spoken to a couple of times. A lonesome Jutlander, all on his own like me.’

Then she had left, calling back over her shoulder that she would be late home, and bang went yet another opportunity for reconciliation or, if nothing else, a chance to talk. The worst of it was that as soon as she walked out of the door she felt on top of the world: she was on her way to a newspaper office where she really enjoyed working, and afterwards she would be meeting a man she was mad about and with whom, with any luck, later that same day she would make love, if he
asked her to come home with him. She didn’t like being the dependent one, but at the same time she couldn’t do without him. It was like being a teenager again. It was dreadful, really, and yet absolutely wonderful. She felt so alive.

She lit a cigarette and brought her mind back to the press release on the computer screen. It would all work out all right, she was sure, and even if the sky was grey, it wasn’t raining, and she was looking forward to the sail out to Flakfortet.

The
White Whale
was a lovely, low-hulled, wooden boat. It was tied up alongside the quay in Nyhavn among all the other wooden boats. The pavement cafés at the feet of the old ochre-, red-and brown-painted houses were crowded with people. The sailboats bobbed gently, and the breeze tugged at their pennants. A canal-tour boat was chugging out of the harbour, and a hydrofoil from Sweden was on its way in. The whole scene was like something off a tourist board poster, Lise thought happily. The
White Whale
had a small quarterdeck, with a life raft slung above it in its canister. The boat could be steered from outside on the quarterdeck by means of a large, old-fashioned wheel and an engine telegraph with a lever for controlling the speed.

Hanging in front of the wheel was a fine old bell, but the sleek motorboat was also equipped with both radio and sonar. The skipper was a man in his thirties who gave his name simply as Jon and introduced his deckhand as Lars. They seemed to know Per and John, who both hopped on board. Per helped her down onto the deck and showed her first the wheelhouse, from which Jon could steer the boat in bad weather, and then the cabin, where six to eight people could be fitted around the table. It was very cosy, with curtains at the portholes, and she also noticed a tiny galley. But it was slightly claustrophobic too. The thought of living on a cramped little boat, with sails or without, did not appeal to Lise. She much preferred the idea of being up on deck in the stern, where she could enjoy the view of Copenhagen’s lovely harbour as Jon headed the boat out into the Sound with deft finesse. Lise felt the wind in her hair and gazed at the water, which shifted from grey to bluish-green when the sun broke through the high clouds. A glass of home-brewed aquavit was popped into her hand by Jon, who was steering the
White Whale
from the large wheel on the quarterdeck. The aquavit was strong and bitter-tasting, but
it was just the thing on such a bracing day. They made good speed past Tre Kroner Fort and on past the second old army fortress, Middelgrund. Beyond this she could now make out a little dark blotch on the waters of the Sound: the outermost fortress, Flakfortet. Jon did not bear straight towards their destination; instead he appeared to come at it in a wide arc. As if reading the puzzlement on her face he proceeded to explain about the waters on their starboard side, which he called the Dirty Sea. It sounded both alarming and poetic. The Dirty Sea was a large stretch of the sea off Flakfortet and the island of Saltholm where the water was no more than a couple of feet deep. For centuries Copenhagen had used this area as a dumping ground. It was full of railway sleepers and concrete blocks, building rubbish and the hulks of old ships. Only a dinghy or a very flat-bottomed boat could cross that patch. That was why they had to cut round it.

‘You get some right fat eels out here,’ Per said. ‘Don’t you, Jon?’